Irish XC NPS 1 - Slade Valley, Saggart, Dublin

Home from uni for Easter for pretty much all of April. Deadly!

Week/weekend plans:
Race. Train. Race. Train. Race. Train. Race. Recover. Smash BXC 2 at the start of May.
Really looking forward to some good time at home with real food and real mtb trails.

How it actually went:
Race first weekend, sustain injury during race. Can't ride for 2 weeks. Another week with only being able to ride every other day (letting the knee swelling go down again in-between), wondering if I could maybe still ride the 1st NPS before I went back to Loughborough. Missing my first stage race and multiple other deadly days bicycle riding. Absolute bummer.
Probably the 2 sunniest weeks of the year and I was stuck in the house. Thank me at any stage you wish.

So 3rd time back on the bike in 3 weeks: in Mary Peters on Thursday trying to get some race-pace MTB efforts done to test the old body out, seeing if I could chance NPS 1 on Sunday... all was going relatively well. Had planned 2 timed laps at the end, nailed the first one, was 6secs up 6mins into the second one... 23mph* off a fireroad into a little twisty bit of trail. Mary Peters is notorious for tight trees and trail furniture in dubious places, so I was being pretty cautious. Coming around a left hander with a tree on the apex, so running a little wide to the right, my front wheel clipped a log lying on the ground. Yes; after missing all the bloody trees and massive rocks I clip a bit of a dead tree lying randomly on the ground.

Straight over the bars. Perfect parabola. 23mph to 0 in less than a second using mostly my head. Flipping massive crash. Land a bit sideways on my head and my back twists and knocks all the wind out of me. HUUUHHH HUHHHH. You know those winded moans. Thought I'd done proper damage to my back (already in not so great condition if you remember back to BXC 1) so just lay there for a while wondering if I indeed was the biggest goober on the planet right now.
After some old lady had heard my moaning and came over to check up on me I finally got up off the ground to check the rest of the body and bike. Right knee also not great, big impact to quad, shin, shoulder fecked, big old gash in my seatpost and some rips in my grips.
Race prep: nailed it.



Friday came about. Couldn't really move my neck. Couldn't really move my back. Both knees now sore.
Saturday came about. Even less ROM in my neck. Back feeling a little better though. Feck it it'll all loosen up in the race..

At least the bike was in reasonable shape. It had already cost me enough this month! Cyclofudge buddy Luke Ireland of Belfast Bike Repair had been rebuilding my front wheel after the Ballykelly disaster and offered me a lift down to Slade Valley.

We got there in reasonable time and set out for a practice lap. I had a nice slick tyre on the front and semi slick on the back. It'd been sunny for the last month, I refused to believe the photos that IMBRC (race organisers) had put up the day before of lots of rain. Sure enough, it was in fact a bit wet. Masses of slippery roots upwards and downwards with wet dirt between. Sure enough, we had no tyre levers between us and the tyres weren't coming off without them. Ah sure it'll be grand.

Race was to start at 2 so about 1.45pm we headed up to the START/finish. I went for a quick portaloo visit, then chatted a while longer; waiting for the prize presentation for the earlier races to finish and our race to start. Or so I thought.
The prize presentation was coming to a close, and it was still pretty much only myself and Luke standing on the line. A little confused, I went for a look and spotted some people further down the fireroad... and as I got closer realised that it was everyone. All 160 odd entrants of the afternoon race lined up. Well, 160 - 2. Fudddge.

In rows of 3 that's about 53 rows. "Sorry. Can I get through. Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry. Can I squeeze past there. Sorry." for what seemed like an eternity before I finally found the rear end of S1. And about 10secs after I'd managed to squeeze in, Commissaire Martin Grimley told us we'd be starting in 30secs. Nice. #ontime

The race got off to a pretty hectic start. With Robin Seymour and Gareth Mckee, the two main men, on the front row, I had some serious ground to make and wanted to get it done quick. Every second counts when up against riders of that quality. Thankfully there was a decent bit of fireroad at the start and I was within reach of the top 5 before long after starting at the back of the massive 30+ man elite field. After a bit of a chuckle as I looked up and saw 2 time Olympian, >15 time Irish XC champion Seymour on me mate Barry Kellett's wheel, I was able to relax a bit and settle in. Mckee was away like a rocket but everyone else was riding quite steady.

After a bit of a mishap coming through the start/finish, I'd a bit of chasing to do again to get back to Seymour and Kellett. Onto Seymour's wheel, off the fireroad into some singletrack. Accidentally clipped out of my light weight not suitable for slippy conditions fudger pedals and couldn't for the life of me get clipped back in. Seymour = gone. Back out onto the fireroad, caught up to him again, but then ended up losing the pedal again and he was gone for good this time. Barry Kellett came past, and Graham Boyd wasn't far behind. At this stage my head was an absolute mess as I was about 2mins behind where I wanted to be. This led to some mental first class Fred moments, going straight on in corners when I must've had my eyes closed or something; completely off track and having to find my way back, sliding out on roots, more clipping out, realising how much my back wasn't 'loosening up'.

Matt Slattery came by, Graham came by, my head went by, I was left on my own in 6th re-evaluating life. Finally realised trying to go fast wasn't exactly working, so went for the 'just keep moving forward' alternative. At this stage I was just gonna be happy if I finished.

I ended up back with Graham, and stuck with him as he rode back to Matt and Barry. Although my back was completely fecked, knee was starting to get a bit sore, and arms were cramping from trying to pull brakes that weren't in the right place from earlier tumbles, Barry was making moves and I wasn't for letting him away when I'd made it this far!

Barry and I got away, and although we got stuck behind some pretty ignorant traffic in some of the singletrack, allowing Graham to catch us again, I was pretty sure the race for 3rd was going to be between us two.
On the penultimate climb Barry launched an attack. This was into the massively rooty 'rabbit ride' climb that I'd been struggling with all day on me slicks, and he got a bit of a gap, but back onto the fireroad, onto the last climb now, I came back alongside him. With only a big descent left to the finish, I made my move and got a gap into the descent, then attacked it to make some more ground. Then got stuck behind some S3 traffic, but thankfully like the majority of them, he politely allowed me through when he'd the chance, and fortunately Barry wasn't close enough behind to get through aswell.
Into the final couple of turns now and I could see Barry was a safe distance behind, so with some more S3s up ahead I wasn't going to get any further. Just stayed upright and made the finish.

As it turned out holeshot-Mckee was only 20secs ahead of me after all that! With Seymour just under 3mins away over the 1h 50min race. Decent enough day out after probably the worst 3 weeks 'training' possible.

Thanks to IMBRC for some brilliant work on the track. It didn't look much different from the 1st lap to the 5th after what, over 500 individual laps? Much appreciated by my slick tyres and questionable line choices.

After that it was back home for dinner and then to the overnight ferry to Liverpool and driving back to Loughborough.
An astoundingly crap Easter all in all, but excuses don't count, results do. Back to trying to get ontop of these injuries and save my season!

Thanks to Graham McIntyre for flawless bottle hand-ups!

Monty, out.

(Thanks to Sean Rowe and Action Pictures Ireland for the photos)

*strava official

NPS 4 - Lady Dixon

In stark contrast to the last proper report I did; starting off with my alarm going crazy at some ridiculous time of the morning, there was no alarm thismorning. With today's fourth round of the Cross-Country National Points Series in Belfast, at Lady Dixon Park, it wasn't going to take me more than 35mins to get there, and my race wasn't until 2pm... I was bound to wake up before 1.25pm on my own accord :)

Your car's ok ma, he's wearing tracksuit bottoms

It's been dry for XMTB's Lady Dixon NPS round for the last 4 years or something, and yet again, the week leading up to it had been a scorcher (in Northern Irish terms - generally above about 8 degrees celcius), with hardly a drop of rain, and Sunday didn't disappoint; a positively tropical 16 degrees said the car, and nice and sunny said my eyes. With a final check to make sure I'd got all my kit in my bags and drinks mixed up, I threw some sun-cream and a rain-coat in the car just to be sure to be sure. Bringing out the sun-cream generally results in a massive rain shower about 10 minutes afterwards so you've got to be prepared. Got in the car, Tifosi sunglasses on, and headed down the road...
for the best part of half a mile before I remembered I'd left the turbo trainer and wheel in the house. Classic.

Practice lap was grand, with a couple of new bits added to the course from last year to keep us on our toes, thanks to the hard work of the trail fairies from XMTB. Nothing really technical to worry about, and it was all nice and dry, so got round it pretty quick and didn't need to stop to look at anything, happy days. The Giant was all Fenwicks'ed up and running sweet, so it was back to the car to fuel up with some Torq.

He's probably beaten you too

With the main man Robin Seymour (Olympian, Irish Cross Country Champ 20 odd times, Irish Cyclocross Champ 20 odd times etc.) signed up to race, I was looking forward to trying to catch him. As a Junior, we generally start about a minute behind the S1/Elite category, but Martin Grimley (he basically runs Irish mountain-bike racing) is a bit of a hero in letting us off a little early sometimes, which gives me a bit more of a chance of getting up to play with the big boys.

Clutching her

2pm came about and I went off to get lined up to be gridded. With the blowing of a whistle and the mashing of pedals, I got off to a relatively decent start, 2nd wheel behind Max Van Der Lee for the first couple of corners. Got by Max and set about bridging up to the rear end of the S1 race. Was making a grand old job of this; sitting about 7th S1 halfway into lap 1. As I passed good friend and S1 racer Simon Curry, he told me to keep it steady and smooth. This seemed a logical approach, and I returned gestures of agreement... So it was kind of awkward a couple of minutes later, when he came back past me as I was picking myself off the ground. Whoops.
All had been going well til I got behind a S1 rider just before probably the most technical and fast bit of the track; a thin, twisty downhill ledge. I wanted to get past before this section as I knew I'd be stuck once we got into it - there was only room for one bike - but I couldn't get round, so I had to settle behind him and make the most of a bit of recovery time. Unfortunately I turned the recovery dial a bit too far, fell asleep, caught something in the ground and high-sided straight through a pretty fast corner. This was quite a substantial knock, and the old 'screw it, I'm still 1st junior; forget about catching Seymour and just ride round' mindset crept up on me for a brief moment, but thankfully, after a bit of searching, I found the button to re-engage beast mode, and we were off again.

Naps are an essential component of high performance. The remnants of  my earlier nap visible on  my shoulder and knee

So back to 15th S1, I had a bit of catching up to do, but it was actually quite nice. In most of the races this year I've got through the rear end of S1 within the first lap, then spend the next 3 or 4 laps pretty lonely, occasionally catching a glimpse of the first couple of riders. This time, it took me the whole way back to the start/finish to get back to the same S1 rider I fell off behind, so I still had good company and a few S1s to catch for the next lap, chasing down S1 team-mates Graham Boyd and Matt Adair.

Munching some air

By the end of lap 3, as I came into the start/finish area I could see 1st and 2nd S1, Seymour and McKee, about 30 seconds up the road, so I knew I was making good time on them and was in with a chance. Seymour put a brave kick into McKee, trying to get away for the win, so this upped the pace a bit which wasn't very thoughtful :) I gave her all the stacks that I had and tried my best to make ground on them, and as we came into the 2nd half of the course I could see I was only about 20 seconds behind now.

Boo!

I caught McKee at the bottom of the final climb, but Seymour had made a bit of ground on him by this stage, so I still had a bit to go. Smashing through the last couple of turns through the trees and back out into the finish area, I could see Seymour just up ahead; I probably put a year's wear into the chain in the space of 200m as I put the last effort in.

You've got to make it at least look like you're trying

Taking care not to fall around the final feed-zone corner (I'd already been round it on my bottom at the end of lap 2; flat grass turns are endless fun), I crossed the line to the chequered flag somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds down on Seymour. Hello anti-climax. Ah well, there's always next time eh. 1st Junior by 9 minutes, with 12minutes back to 3rd, happy enough.

McKee put in a deadly lap 5 (S1s did another lap over Juniors) and held the gap on Seymour, but yet again it was to be the King, Robin Seymour (WORC) taking the S1 win, with Gareth McKee (CRC/Vitus) in 2nd and Graham Boyd (XMTB McConvey Cycles) in 3rd.

Nonetheless, a super day's racing and it was awesome to see everyone out in the sun riding their bikes and smiling. No mechanicals and generally a pretty smooth and steady race after my eagerness was knocked out of me at the start.

As usual, McConveys Cycles are a big help, with an extensive range of bicycle bits and clothes. It kills me to have lost the mighty Pisspot of grand Bulletman/Bomberboy fame; it was a super little helmet and I've pretty much kickstarted a worldwide trend if you look at any of the boys winning Grand Tour stages or CX races.

RIP old pal

My Specialized S-works Prevail made the transition a little easier, as it's a class helmet, although this whole helmet hair business is a bit new for me. Specialized S-works shoes are also fantastic. The soles are almighty stiff so you can feel everything and can put the power down anywhere. They're also kind of snazzy looking. Fenwick's sprayey stuff does what it says on the tin, and has been essential in keeping the bikes ticking over after all the stinking races we've done so far. Their Disc Brake Cleaner will take any kind of dirt off anything. Torq's gels, bars and drinks taste great and there's some good science behind them so you can be confident they're helping you out. Banoffee and Rhubarb and Custard gels have to be tasted to be believed! Tifosi's glasses are comfy and light and do a grand job of keeping the sun out of your eyes and making you look rad. The Giant XTC 29er bus is fit for anything from black DH trails to pump tracks and all out XC racing, I've tried it on all of them! It's also pretty good for hanging your wet kit over and it fits in the back of my mum's Seat Leon, what more could you ask for. Also, thanks to Belfast City Council for allowing us into the beautiful Lady Dixon park, it's such an awesome venue for fast racing and us mountain-bikers are awfully appreciative of your continued support.

http://elitetiming.co.uk/Results/NPS_R4_Class.pdf - Results

That's all for now. Got some A-Levels or something I'm told.
Monty, out.

Mud, Sweat, and, emmm Little Mix.. (Ulster XC Series Round 6 - Craigavon)

BEEP BEEEEP BEEPPEDY BEEPPP BEEEP!! Wehhhh, go away alarm. As I mustered up every last ounce of 7.30am effort I could muster, in return I got to see the most laughably half assed claw for my phone through the furry haze that used to be my eyes. A little like one of those arcade machines that can never quite grab the fluffy bunny or rubber duck that you never wanted in the first place. With a couple more attempts, I got a hold of my phone/alarm and squashed it til it cried no more.

The night before I'd gone to bed nice and early, last bit of recovery before the last XC race of the season. Unfortunately, try as I might, I was still counting sheep til long after midnight: maybe I slept too much over Summer. Consequently, the battle to conquer what lay beyond my bed on Sunday morning wasn't greeted with much valour.

Many scrambled eggs, spinach, fruit and a cold shower later, I was beginning to feel a bit more rad. Dude. All out of beetroot juice though, much emotional distress as a result. Got some clothes thrown in a bag, some tools thrown in another bag, some powder thrown into some bottles, and some shaking done to said bottles. The main man, of Team Maxbo fame, Barry Van Kellett, was most generous in offering me a lift for the morning, so all was left to wait for himself to roll up. And what better place than back to bed to wait. It's tough at the top.

I'd say something nice about driving through Lurgan and Craigavon, but I'd only be lying. Van Kellett stopped to buy a bottle of water and I put on my scariest face and sucked some air into my biceps as I guarded the bikes. Ross Kemp come at mah'.

Got to Craigavon Lakes, I know, a Cross Country Mountain-Bike race around a pond, it doesn't make much sense, but it definitely does make for much pain. Being relatively light, I can pull away from the heavier strong-men on climbs as it's all power:weight, but with it being a pretty flat track, power:weight ain't all that important, so I was promised an absolute hammering session from my fellow S2 men. I could feel my little legs tremble at the thought.

Some craic, a practice lap, and a race number with nothing to attach it to my bike with, later, I got back to the car to catch some rays before kick-off. Zak Hanna was also rolling in the Barrymobile for the day, so myself and him lay back, ate some food and listened to some radio. Little did I know how much that'd haunt me for the rest of the race. Little Mix, you aren't even a real band.

Next up, I'd a warmup to do. I was chatting away to Richard Stewart by the car, probably discussing some super serious tactical plans(...) as usual, having the craic. A little shooting pain in my back. What's that now? Hurt a bit, but not too bad, fairly sure I was imagining things, carried on chatting. Normally a little shooting pain like that goes away after a second or two, this one, not so much. Was just around my HR monitor so I thought maybe I'd snagged it or something. Trying my best not to look like a wimp and carry on conversation, I stuck my hand up to have a feel around. See if Van Kellett had really gone as far to shoot me, to sabotage my chances of winning. Felt something! Like a burr off a tree, the wee prickly thing must've jabbed me. Went to pull it out, but as my fingers gripped it tighter, it was far too soft to be a bur, not to mention the fact it was moving. STING! Again. It was a bloody wasp stuck down my bib-shorts and I'd just been stung twice. Never a dull day. Pulled the remains of the wasp out of my leg in utter disbelief. How it got down my shorts I'll never know.

Got a relatively good warmup done as far as warmups go. Started a bit early, and then ended a bit early. I managed to get my chain stuck between two chainrings when shifting down off the big ring. Effort Daveee. Took me a solid 5mins (which feels like 5hrs when your race starts in about 10mins) and some very oily hands, to get it pulled back out. Ideal race prep. Never sweated so much in my life.

I love this next photo. There were no S1 riders on the day, this is the S2 field - the fastest men of the day - lined up with only minutes to the race. I don't think I've ever seen such a chilled out start line. So much awesome, what a fine bunch of men.

The man with the whistle blew his whistle, (with relative ease and finesse, must be a Flo Rida fan) and we were off. Stuart Ballantine got a class start, and I made my way towards him as best as I could. The first few corners were absolute madness, what used to be Craigavon's finest grass had turned to the slideyestest mud ever, and my fine choice of a Specialized Renegade on the front and fairly worn Racing Ralph on the rear meant I was going nowhere unless it was sideways. I'd've been safer bringing some ice-skates.

 For the first time of the day, things had gone to plan and I'd got clear of everybody else (apart from Stu) so had plenty of time and room to get round the corners in one piece. Got past Stu and was on my own for a couple of seconds, but that definitely wasn't the plan. I hadn't mentioned this yet, I don't know how I'd forgotten, but the race was 6 laps. 6 LAPS! Yes the tracks are always different, but we generally do 4 laps, and my shagged knees limit my endurance training a lot. Not good! So the plan was to sit in 2nd for as long as I could and let somebody else worry about pacing. If I could make it to the end, super, if I couldn't, shame, if I made it to the end with enough left in the tank to get into 1st, perfect.

Robbie Lamont came past, and Simon Curry and Ross Blayney were with us too, along with Stuart. The first lap was fast. I was sitting in 4th when Stuart attacked before Craigavon's one and only hill that we happened to be going up, up the back of the course. Which normally would've been grand, but this part of the trail was only wide enough for one bike, so I'd no mission of getting round those infront of me and onto Stuarts wheel. I sat there as he picked up ground, nothing I could do. Thankfully the trail then came to an open grassy bit, so I was able to get round and catch upto him again. Sit in 2nd, plan.

We were riding fast through the singletrack, really fast.  Normally I'm super focussed in a race, there's not much to think about when you're chewing on air for all its worth, but with such a long race, it was a little different this time. That sitting in the car earlier, so unassumingly listening to Radio 1, chilling out. Well from that, that new Little Mix song was firmly wedged between my ears, and flippsake but I could hear nothing else. My thoughts went a little something like, 'corner, brake, pedal, mamma told me not... corner, brake, mamma told.. corner, pedal, pedal, mamma told me not to waste my life, she said... sprint, corner, mamma told me not to waste my life, she said spread your wings my little butterfly.. etc.' . For-ever. I was by no means ever a Little Mix fan, but I actively dislike them now. Horrfic. 'least it wasn't Nicki Minaj.

Skip forward a bit, Robbie, Simon and Ross caught up, and Stuart disappeared. For the next couple of laps we swapped places, but everyone was looking very strong. I was able to copy all the sneaky XMTB lines and it was brilliant fun to be riding with other people after spending so much time racing out on my own all year! What an experience it was to race. I kid you not: we met a horse, dogs, an old lady raking her mobility scooter, and countless parents and kids all over the trail. More people in 90mins  than Davagh forest has seen in its lifetime!

The track was taking no prisoners, and after gobbling up Stu, Ross was the next to go, breaking his seat or something on the Ice Rink... And then there were three. From here, there were probably one or two laps to go. Very, very fortunately I wasn't as tired as I'd have expected, all was going to plan. We lost Simon somewhere, and then there were two! If disaster stayed at bay, we'd be on the podium. Sweeet as. For the last lap, my legs were feeling like they would love a good cramp, so rather than attacking, I held onto Robbie's wheel and rode as conservatively as possible... as you can see.

Got to the same bit as Stuart had attacked at the start of the race, just a hill and the slippy corners to go, and attacked. Thankfully my legs played ball, and we sprinted up the hill. Slid round the corners, sprinted up some more hills, and I'd pulled away by a reasonable distance. Eased it off a bit and spun over the line, job done. 1hr 36mins of racing, I could feel every second. Couldn't have asked for a better finish to the season. A hell of a lot tougher than usual, but such tight races are fantastic justification for every night spent sleeping, and every morning spent training, when all me mates are out on the rip. I love racing me bike.

Big thanks to everyone who's helped me out in any way over the season especially me mammy and daddy for putting up with me. As always, Rynopower and Green Oil have been a dream to use, Rynopower is so far ahead of the game, and Green Oil does everything and more you could ever ask of it. To everyone who's done my bottles, given me a lift, cheered me on, read this blog, looked pretty with me on podium photos, taken photos, given me advice or lent me parts, I love you, srs.

Next up is my first ever season of Cyclocross, from October to January. Excited.

Monty's 2012 XC Season, over and out. Thanks again.

Lady Dixon - XC NPS 4

After round 3 back in Tracton, I was not in a good shape. It most definitely cut my life expectancy by far too many years. Me back was broke, I couldn't walk on my left calve, and then I got a throat infection. I'm not even just gurning for the sake of gurning, I had to get me mummy to put on my socks and shoes for I couldn't Ben Dover, thankfully her mind isn't logical enough to realise that there was no reaching my feet in the shower either...

Many hours spent sleeping(it's a tough life), painkillering, hobbling round the house, and the back was getting better, and I've just got used to my left calf being a selfish brat. But then came the throat. Oh baby. There's only so many Soothers a man can eat in one day! Yearly recommended sugar allowance within a week, not to mention whatever other crap is in there. Difflam spray is class at numbing your throat, but unfortunately every bite of food still went down like a fire breathing cross between a rock and a cactus. That combined with not being able to sleep for more than 3hrs at a time: negative craic. So much so I was tidying my room at 4am one morning.. Disclaimer before the mums and dads force-feed their kids Soothers and Difflam.

2 weeks, 2hrs of bicycle riding. (n-2hrs) of thinking. Very dangerous. Not recommended.

Throat started clearing up a bit on Thursday, so rested and then took the bike out on Friday, hoping to get a few taper intervals done and get the software reinstalled in the legs. All good, got myself a new Strava KOM and all, buzzin'. Then came Saturday morning, and Friday's heavy breathing and time spent in a Sauna far too close some hairy 'big boned' men, had me back on the ever-diminishing anti sore throat collection, wondering whether I could race at all on Sunday or not.

Mummy thought I was wise not racing. Father couldn't believe a cold was stopping me. After Saturday morning spent reading as many stories of people racing with deadly throats as I could and checking the corresponding obituaries when I'd time in between forcefeeding my throat remedies. Turns out not many people died from racing with no throat, so I thought I'd head up to Lady Dixon for a practice lap or two and decide after that.

I'd write about that, but I want to get to bed at some stage before sunrise, you probably do too.

T'was Sunday morning, all lubed up with Green-oil's dry wax, digestive system lubed up with Rynopower's carbs and a few electrolyte tablets - not sure whether they give you diarrhoea or take it away - the mighty Saab's engine was ignited and wheels got turning in the direction of Lady Dixon park. Well, beforehand, I'd forgot to close the lid on the protein shaker and most of it was over the floor, left half the toolkit at home, but I HAD remembered to put my contact lenses in for the first time in many centuries, so everybody was smiling.

Got cruising did I and Father, and rolled into the Park before long. Thanks to XMTB for trying to tell me I'd missed sign-on even though I was an hour early, and Martin Grimley reiterating this ;) Take me to your time machine.. Got some fancy waxy rope rather than cable ties to put on my number, so was already saving grams on all the early sign-er on-ers of S2, loving it.. until I was tying the bottom one nice and tight round the head-tube to be super dooper aero, and it ripped through the number. Saving more grams. Was good to see Matthew Adair showing his face, and huge thanks to his family for doing my bottles!
Also I love good weather. I love how suddenly it's deemed appropriate for everyone to walk around with no top on. Why isn't it like that all the time. Best not to stand chatting round the toilets to other men while sporting the topless look though..

Brought my turbo, but couldn't decide whether I wanted to use it or not, there was already little enough grip on my rear tyre let alone sticking her on the grindstone on a hot day! Jumped on anyway as I'd nothing better to do. Oh boy. If you've too little money for a mx bike, but too much to have any sense, buy a hardtail and stick a Specialized Renegade tyre on the rear, on a turbo, and get some mx videos on. Some major clutching and throttle was given, and I got the engine worn in. As tempted as I was to stay and race my imaginary mx friends, Martin Grimley was getting sweatier and sweatier over by the start line, so I thought I better head over and get gridded.

A nice gridding spot was had, 2nd man in on the 2nd row. After a bit of a laboured start, the effects of my super pro warmup wearing off, and beginning to need the toilet a little, we finally set off and all further humanely thoughts were ejected. Animal time. First corner was always gonna be interesting, sprint into 90 degrees right hander, luckily I got by a few boys and got a smooth enough line through it, not too many elbows brushed. First section was carnage, a fairly large tree in the middle of the track that didn't seem to want to move for anybody, as good as their game of chicken was. Riders going everywhere, roost going everywhere, lethal craic.

Held her steady for the first lap, probably started in about 10th, think I came across the line 2nd in the first lap, happy days. I'm not gonna lie, I've no idea what happened after that. Just know I managed my main goal of not falling off, and was cornering fairly smooth by the end, so fairly happy. Got into first in the 2nd lap I think, then held it steady, thinking it was plain sailing from here. Pass a few s1s, pass a few ladies, then realise there's someone hanging about my tail. Ahhh go away.

Think it was lap 3 as he got closer I realised it was the man himself Marc Potts. Started off in A4 cat. on the road this year and is almost an A1 now. Man is a machine. The race had just begun.

Coming across the line onto the final lap I said to him to go on by, being the tactical genius that I am(not), I thought he'd probably be quicker in the singletrack, and I could slipstream him a bit on the grass, so it would all be much more civilised with me behind him rather than the other way round. Inevitably he didn't pass, ah balls, smash the singletrack and see if he can hold me. By this stage I was loving the singletrack, on the 4th lap lines be dialled. Pulled a couple of seconds on him occasionally, but I don't know whether I was going fast or he couldn't be bothered being tight on my wheel, as he always seemed to be dangling around my rear like a dingleberry.

Sat on the limiter for the grass, trying to make the most of a passing a few backmarkers and having a man between us both, but there wasn't much loosing him. Drank all me juice in a tactically genius realisation that my bike would be lighter if the contents of my bottle were in me, and I'd go faster. Maybe this helped, maybe it didn't, but by the bottom of the last climb towards the finish line, Marc was still behind me. Meanwhile I think my quads were still somewhere halfway round the lap, I'd dropped them somewhere, for every time I stopped pedalling came on a deadly cramp, my legs were crying out for their fallen friends on the battlefield. 

Slacked off a bit, again thinking I can save some energy if I ride behind him up this last open climb, and then hopefully pip him just before the line if I make it. Turned out as he came past, there were 2 S1 riders on his wheel, or something that seemed a lot more complicated than i'd expected. Then coming into the corner before the climb there was a lady rider, and he got infront of her, but I was stuck behind her in the corner. Basically I rode my spherical bits off to catch him again, but such a ship had long sailed. Crossed the line a couple of seconds back, 2nd S2 and 1st Junior.

Fairly happy, bike stayed in one piece, I drank up well, and spent no time on the ground. Quite the opposite to Tracton.

Well done to Marc for winning S2, Barry for not being last in the sprint, Dan for riding round in 3 gears, Matt for being Matt, Gareth for 2nd in S1, Findhan for riding round in a cotton t-shirt in 25 degrees, Simon for coming 4th S2, and I haven't seen the results so I don't really know how anybody else did, but if you did well, well done. And a huge thanks to XMTB for an awesome event, and Martin Grimely for keeping things running. Big up the Green Oil and Rynopower. Oh and thanks to everybody who took photos. If I stole yours and you don't like that, let me know. I'm sure I've forgotten somebody, for that I apologise, but its inevitable.

Skinsuits rock. Monty, out.

I may or may not add some more photos when I find them.

Oh and my throat is sore again, thanks for asking. I have my recovery tights on though so hopefully it'll be ok.

XC NPS 3 - Tracton Woods - Race Day Rambling

First race of the 'season', this was always going to be an interesting one. 'season', in the mighty inverted commas of mystery, because so far, it really hasn't been much of a season at all.

Pre-season training literally consisted of 3 weeks of what I would call, proper training, the rest mostly spent rolling around the floor stretching, or on the foam roller. From August 2011, my knees have been giving me grief, and been putting a mighty limiter on what training I can do before they blow up. After many, many labouring weeks and months of trying to get anything useful out of the NHS, I ended up with a MRI scan on one knee. Turns out there's some tissue growth disorder in and around my knees, which, according to the 'specialist', is actually fairly common in kids my age, but only flares up in those that do excessive exercise. The bone is growing too fast for the tissue, so the tissue is stretched, and then you go and do a load of training on top of that, tightening the muscles, so the tissue is stretched even more and that pulls everything every shape. Not good. What fabulous preparation for the season... and that's not to mention breaking my wrist 10 weeks ago aswell!

Thankfully I 'will grow out of it', the advice for now was 'not to push it to the limit'... oh the casual ambiguity around what could potentially destroy me future in cycling/world domination.

Race day began at 0030h with Barry and Brian arriving back from their midnight track walk. I seemed to have had fallen asleep (sleeping bags are for wimps), only to be awoken with Barry's torch flashing into my tent and him talking to me. At least this meant I could finally get me sleeping bag and also got kindly donated an air mattress thing, it was boss, many thanks to the Kellett Krew/Team Maxbo. After that I got to sleep fairly quickly, and other than the noisiest birds you've never heard in your life waking me up about a hundred times, sleep was good.

Woke up for a final time at 0730'ish and got some breakfast in before heading away for a practise lap (once I'd ridden through what seemed like every lump of cow excrement in the mighty camping field to get to the road. Irish races, can't beat 'em). Was fairly awesome being out on the track at this hour, had loads of uninterrupted time to ride about every line possible and not possible alike. 'Got 'em dialled' as it could be said...

Unfortunately this was next to no use when the race began. Turns out racing with 30+ S2 men is fairly different than racing with 3 or 4 U16s. With U16 racing, most of the time you're on your own, or in groups of 2 or 3 max, so there was never any worry about missing your lines, whereas S2 turned out to be absolute chaos off the start! Fun nonetheless! Additionally, it kind of added to the madness as I realised that I'd forgot to put contact lenses in about 5mins before the start. This resulted in me running back to the tent, hoking me contact lenses out of the bag at the other side of the tent while trying to keep my dirty shoes out of the tent. Got them out, got positioned nicely infront of Brian's door mirror, think I remembered which one was for the right and which was for the left, and got set on getting the right one in with my muddy fingers. Proceeded to get the left one out of the packet, onto the tip of my finger and heading towards my eye, BAM, gust of wind, goodbye contact lens. Brilliant. Tried looking about, but then realised I was looking for a transparent contact lens in a cattle field and had about 2mins to the start of my race and decided to screw that and get to the start line.

Had absolutely no idea what to expect, from myself, and my severe lack of training. Was hoping I hadn't lost much fitness from last year, but knew the chances of it increasing were terribly slim, and this year, as a Junior rather than U16, our races are twice the duration, so anything was possible, but the odds seemed stacked towards the disastrous end of the scale.

Track started with a 2-3min fire-road climb. Thankfully I got clipped in and off the line well, and was top 15 coming up the climb. Content with this, took it easy and made a few more places before the trail entrance, but didn't exert myself, plenty of time yet. Then we got to the 2nd bit of singletrack, and the rider infront of me slides out on a root. Chaos squared. I try tripoding the bike round him but proceed to almost fall over myself. Not quite the start I wanted. Got past anyway, and got motoring to catch the boys infront that had made a bit of time now.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847053584&k=K4qT6wj

Got caught up with them, and was probably sitting in top 7 or so now, but still not really feeling as if I was exerting myself. Saw BanbridgeCC man Simon Curry 2 men ahead, so got up to him and sat behind him for a while, knowing that he's a steady rider who consistently finishes top 3 in S2s, thinking if I can sit on his wheel for the rest of the race, that'll be more than enough to ask for in my first S2 race. This went well, until I took a different line to him coming into a technical section, and it was quite a bit faster, so I ended up coming up on his right hand side on a bit of trail only wide enough for one of us! Luckily averted disaster and squeezed infront of him. From then on, I rode steady, and before I knew it I had caught what seemed to be 1st and 2nd position, but couldn't know for sure whether there were riders in my race ahead of them, or if this was the front of the race! Thankfully at the start of the 2nd lap we passed S1 rider Lance McCarthy, and after trying to tyre buzz him for a while, he let me past and confirmed that they were the 1st S2 riders to go past him. Sitting in 3rd then, sweet.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847054973&k=VXnLzd3&lb=1&s=A

Rode for a bit longer, in 2nd place coming up a windy straight, so thought it'd be a good idea to speed tuck in behind the man in-front and save some energy. This was a fantastic idea, just a shame about the execution: he slipped past a stump on his right, but my front wheel was slightly to the right of his rear, and before I knew it i'd hit the stump and was lying on my face with the bike ontop of me, still clipped in. Wasn't sore, just a little offputting when you're trying to stick with the man infront but you're lying on the ground on your head! Got back on and caught him again and got by him and I was out on my own. Kind of couldn't believe it, was wondering if I'd completely screwed up my pacing and was going to blow up badly. Didn't blow up, probably actually went a bit faster over the end of the 2nd lap and into the 3rd lap. Passed some more S1s, but then coming out of a corner I went to pedal and nothing turned!! Disaster! Hopped off the bike and tried to see what was up. Rear derailleur cage had well and truly snapped, and the chain had jumped through the cage and was basically fooked.

http://www.windyheightsphotography.com/BICYCLES/XC-NPS-Round-3-Tracton-Woods/22976435_Hhw2qb#!i=1847046634&k=mb6KVvs

Was able to bend some bits back together and get the chain re-routed and semi-working again. Unfortunately from here on I only had one gear, and when I applied any sort of force the chain was skipping.   Due to the time it'd taken to get the bike going again, I'd slipped back into 3rd place, but only by a little bit. Got going as much as circumstances allowed , and got back into 1st, and made some ground on the rest of the field again. Then about 1/3rd of the way into my 4th and final lap, the derailleur blew up for good, and I was faced with 2 options. Run the rest of the lap and finish the race, I still had good time over the S2 and Junior field, or run the rest of the lap and finish the race. Quitting wasn't an option if you'd seen the amount of food i'd eaten over the weekend... I needed to burn the rest of it off.. haha.

So inevitably S2 riders started coming past me as I ran every uphill and flat and freewheeled and pumped my way on every decline. Then the 1st junior rider came past, and I'd lost both my S2 and Junior 1st place. Shame. Ran and freewheeled on, ended up 2nd Junior and 8th S2, so altogether not the worst performance, but just a bit of a shame that it almost certainly could've been a 1st in both categories!!

I'll not even begin to explain the aftermath of the race, but basically running a lot of a mtb lap with a bike, up steep inclines, bent over to hold onto the bars, turns out isn't such a good idea for your back! Really struggling to stand afterwards, but then I couldn't even bend down to sit in a seat, not desirable! Lay against a car for a while, got some iBuprofen gel on and about half a can of deep freeze on, and then finally made it into a seat. Couldn't move for about the next 2 or 3hrs, meaning I missed getting up onto the podium to get me photy taken, gutted.

It's now 3 days later and I still can't really bend down, back is still mega sore, but I can walk again, and it's getting better, so it's all good!

Track was amazing, big up the MBCC for doing such a super job of organising the race. Team Kellett was amazing, huge thanks for the lift down and back again, and packing up my tent when I was paralysed, and everything else. Also thanks to team BCC - Simon and James Curry and Gar Mckee for providing the morning's craic and helping the tent-packing efforts of the evening.

Also thanks as always to Rynopower for providing all me race fuel, and Green-oil for keeping everything running smoothly (unfortunately they can't fool-proof your derailleurs though..)

Monty, out.